firmly ambivalent

...staying a safe distance back at all times...

Saturday, September 25, 2004

MY BRAIN IS A GLASS THAT IS HALF EMPTY

For a very long time, I have had difficulty in reconciling the overtly similar yet covertly disparate activities of reading and writing. Despite their obvious connectedness, I still manage to convince myself that they are mutually exclusive to one another, and that their concurrence precludes any fruitful and substantive outcome, by which I mean, any writing endeavour undertaken while in the throes of reading is bound to be coloured by the prose at hand, the result of which is an inauthentic and tainted voice.

I no longer believe this exaggerated position to have any validity: this is the result of a directly proportional relationship that has emerged between my age and my reading interests, rendering me greedy and insatiable in the face of endless possibilities afforded by the availability of reading material that I deem to be worth my while. I can voluntarily drown myself in the abundant wit, intelligence, and insight of countless others who have succeeded in marching a few steps further than I.

Until recently, I insisted that my inability to put forth any prose of my own was the result of an inaccurate impression that there was nothing left to say, as everything had/has already been quite capably said by others. Now it is my belief that I must take in as much as I can in the short time allotted to me in this life, if I am to understand all that I want to understand [it is ironic to note that, socratically speaking, I am also aware that the more I know, the more I realize that I know nothing]. In light of this realization, there is no time left for writing.

Sadly, there is also no time left for reading. If reading precludes the ability to write, then the daily rigamarole of life precludes the ability to read. My brain wastes, and along with it, the jubilation that comes with reading something enlightening fizzles out.

Still, the promise of a time to read that may avail itself holds much excitement. The same can be said for the promise of a time to write. Two different promises: one will undoubtedly be broken.